Caldwell, PAC Spent $5 Million In Mayoral Campaign

Kirk Caldwell

BY JIM DOOLEY - Kirk Caldwell and the Super PAC that supported him spent more than $5 million to win this year’s Honolulu mayoral election – tripling the expenditures of losing candidate Ben Cayetano, according to reports filed today with the state Campaign Spending Commission.

Pacific Resources Partnership, the political action committee that backed Caldwell, spent $3.6 million in this year’s election.

Almost all of that money went to advertising and other political support of Caldwell, who favored continuation of the city’s rapid transit project which Cayetano adamantly opposed.

Caldwell’s campaign spent just under $1.7 million and ended the campaign $222,000 in the red.

Former Hawaii Gov. Cayetano’s campaign spent $1.43 million and the PAC that supported him, called AiKea, kicked in another $213,000, according to spending reports.

Ben Cayetano

The Caldwell/PRP spending totals dwarf the money spent by Mufi Hannemann, $3.7 million, to win the last full Honolulu mayoral campaign.

Cayetano is suing PRP and several individuals and companies involved in the negative campaign that was waged against him.

PRP is financed by contractors, developers and the Hawaii Carpenters Union.

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Jim Dooley joined the Hawaii Reporter staff as an investigative reporter in October 2010. Before that, he has worked as a print and television reporter in Hawaii since 1973, beginning as a wire service reporter with United Press International. He joined Honolulu Advertiser in 1974, working as general assignment and City Hall reporter until 1978. In 1978, he moved to full-time investigative reporting in for The Advertiser; he joined KITV news in 1996 as investigative reporter. Jim returned to Advertiser 2001, working as investigative reporter and court reporter until 2010. Reach him at Jim@hawaiireporter.com

These are bribe loans or speculative loans--money given to someone who may win and who when he/she wins is expected to pay them back. But the taxpayers will be paying them back. Pure and simple. Bribes that will have to be paid back. Quid pro quo.

The Honolulu rail contracts are controlled by HART. Can you point to any example of bribery on the current contracts? Even Governor Cayetano never made that charge. Please keep us informed if you have any evidence of bribery.

Perhaps preaching to the choir here, when the late Dr. Ira Rohter and I began to research the relationship between campaign money and contracts for the Hawai`i Clean Elections organization (many years ago now), we quickly realized that while no direct connection could ever possibly be made, when the same contractors day-after-day, year-after-year gave big money and received big contract-after-contract, common sense might dictate that there IS a direct connection. The same can be said of Congress of course. I'll not get into the lobbyist's direct connection here. Until the American public wakes up to the reality of how we are all being screwed by the big-money interests, nothing will change and all other reforms are just nibbling around the edged. Publicly financed political campaigns would change our world for the better. The solutions to many of our problems are there but are routinely blocked by the monied interests. At home, one need look no further than one's Oceanic-Time-Warner bill. Mine, for basic cable and Roadrunner, is over $100. What this means is, a child of a poor single working mother cannot afford broadband. Think about that for a moment re who has access to the Internet and who doesn't. I fully concur with the following comments about the "corruption conception, execution and maintenance" in Hawai`i, I might suggest that we all as individuals continue to or begin to "call out" these pariah in our society in public; at the mall or wherever else we may encounter them. In other words, shame them in public. I do and will continue to do so. I've paid the price of course but I sleep very well at night, apart from worrying about how to pay my inflated electric and cable bills

Look back at how it was done and then look me up. Hawaii is littered with corruption conception, execution and maintenance. it begins with the Alawai and seems to never end wending its way thru the Natatorium; most public parks; the Airport; the Alcoholic Beverage commission, the legislature [most or second most convictions in the last twenty years or so] the Bishop Estate Trust; the Convention Center; how UH operates.... slapping another name on the same gang of people e.g. HART, doesn't change the culture or the level of competence. It may be that there simply are enough competent people in the Islands to pull this feat off. Don't be naive. I won't have to keep you informed. The FBI will.

I agree with the comments of Steve Laudig and Roy Kamisato. I would also like to add that the ballots not available in so many voting areas was intentional to avoid the many votes that would have elected Cayetano. It was an obvious setup controlled by the City. This is so disgusting. Here we are again, bought and paid for Mayor.